Your World Is Mine (And Mine Is Yours)
by Brightness Wordweaver
Summary: Billy is now Dr. Wonderful and the resident hero of L.A., while Megamind has taken over Metro City after the deaths of Metro Man and Roxanne Ritchi. Both are plagued with memories that don't make sense, of a past that never happened. The two super-geniuses are on a collision course, and only one can hope to escape unscathed.
1. Brand New Day

A/N: So I thought I'd try a multi-chapter fic again, from a couple of fandoms that are small, but near to my heart. (I don't own either of them.) For anybody left hanging on The Man from Dyton Colony, I promise I will get around to finishing that - and this one, too!

Megamind woke up screaming, and remembered, as he did every morning, that the nightmare had been real.

_Roxanne, impaled by shrapnel, looking up unrecognizingly, whispering "It's okay. Metro Man will save us."_

_Roxanne dead on the floor of the fake observatory._

Minion would have heard the scream, but he wouldn't come. The first time it had happened, Minion had come thundering into Megamind's room, demanding to know what was wrong, and had nearly gotten his head bitten off. Now the Wake-Up Yell was just a part of their morning routine, to be systematically ignored.

The nightmares were the only time Megamind thought about that day, the day he'd gotten everything he wanted. When he was awake, he didn't feel a thing. He was the Evil Overlord of Metrocity, and Evil Overlords didn't wake up screaming because they'd (accidentally) killed the hero's girlfriend.

They went out and robbed banks and tromped around the city in a really big robot suit, blaring face-melting heavy metal wherever they passed.

...

"Hey, why would the Department of Defense be sending you stuff?" Moist asked, gingerly picking up an envelope from the slightly dampened stack of mail.

"Who knows? Probably just some regimented change-of-status paperwork-wait a minute, did you say Department of Defense?" Billy spun around from the workbench where he'd been tinkering with the Stun Ray 2.0, hurrying over to see the envelope Moist was holding out to him. "As in, the one in DC?"

"That's what the return address says," Moist pointed out.

Billy held the envelope up to the light in a white-gloved hand. "This could be good. This could be really good." He couldn't keep the excitement out of his voice. "_Finally_, somebody on the national scale is noticing my work. This could be my big break." Stepping into Captain Hammer's shoes had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it was all dealing with petty crooks and gangs, not the kind of world change he'd once aspired to.

Billy ripped open the letter.

_Dr. Wonderful,_ (it read)

_We have been watching your career for some time now at the Department of Defense, and would like to belatedly congratulate you on your successful takedown of the Evil League of Evil. As you may have guessed, we need to request your services outside of the greater LA area. Recently, a supervillain known as Megamind has taken over Metro City, MI, ruling it with an iron fist. While he has yet to do significant damage outside of city limits, we are concerned that he may attempt to demolish the hydropower stations there, which would significantly impact the nation's power grid. _

_We would like to offer you a temporary contract as Defender of Metro City, for the purposes of defeating Megamind and returning him to prison whence he came. If you are successful, a semipermanent contract may be offered, as Megamind tends to escape confinement regularly._

_Sincerely,_

_Robert M. Gates, US Secretary of Defense_

There was a business card, with a phone number. Billy stared at it for a few seconds. Then he reached for the phone and dialed.

"Penny?" he said as the call picked up. "Hey, honey, sorry to call in the middle of the day, but can you get away from the shelter for lunch? No? I'll meet you there, then. No, you don't need to worry-I just want to run something by you. See you then. Bye."

He hung up, set the phone aside, and leaped into the air with a whoop.

"They're offering me a contract! For Metro City!" he yelled in delight, grabbing Moist's hands to dance around the room (and then immediately dropping them, because even with gloves that wasn't a pleasant sensation).

Moist frowned. "So...why'd you call Penny instead of them?"

Billy looked a little embarrassed. "Well, I mean, we're engaged, I can't just go move halfway across the country without saying anything. And, you know, she's got her work with the homeless and stuff-does Metro City even have a homeless population?"

"You're not gonna turn something like this down just for Penny, are you?" Moist said incredulously.

"Of course not!" Billy said, hoping that sounded truer than it was. He couldn't think why, but there was something in the back of his mind whispering that things went dreadfully wrong when he forgot to consider Penny in his plans. "I just...want to talk it over with her, is all."

With that, he went to go change into something more normal that wouldn't get him mobbed by fans going down the street. As he went, he nearly tripped over something.

"Moist! What is this thing?" he demanded.

"Um, I think it was the...Switch-a-Ray? I'm not sure," the henchman ventured.

"Switch-a-Ray? What on earth did that do?" Billy demanded. Neither of them could remember.

"Oh, well. It's probably nothing important."

...

Minion knew there was something wrong. Of course, when you were a henchfish, there was always something wrong, because if everything were right, you and your Sir would be in jail, but this was a different kind of wrong than usual.

The strangest thing was, he could've sworn it had something to do with L.A.

For some reason, they'd been in L.A. several months ago-he wasn't sure why. The strangest thing was, he could've sworn Roxanne Ritchi had been there with them, even though she'd definitely died about a year ago, right before Sir took over the city. There had been a guy in a red and black doctor's costume, robbing somebody, and then all of a sudden the guy had always been wearing white, and was looking very confused.

It almost felt like there were two memories slap-fighting each other in his fish brain. In one memory, he and Sir had gone to L.A. for no real reason, on one of Sir's random sprees of minor crime outside of Metro City-field trips, he called them. L.A.'s resident hero had shown up with a bunch of weird guns and driven them away, and Sir had mostly stayed in Metro City after that.

In the other memory, they had been there with Roxanne Ritchi, because she'd always wanted to see the California beaches and Sir said that was as good a vacation spot as any. Then the man in red and black had shown up. Sir had tried to stop him, and then something happened and Miss Ritchi was gone and Sir was back in black and didn't know what to do.

No, the first memory had to be the real one.

Minion wished it weren't. Ever since becoming Evil Overlord, Sir was different, stiffer. He didn't show off or dance anymore. His evil laugh was colder and harder, and he didn't banter like he used to. And then there was that awful scream every morning, the one they didn't talk about.

Usually, when something was wrong (_really_ wrong), Minion knew how to fix it. But this he had no idea where to begin fixing, and it scared him to death.

...

"So what was it you needed to talk to me about?" Penny asked, as they sat down to bowls of watery soup.

The newest Caring Hands shelter, now well into its second year of operation, was flourishing nicely. Thanks to vigorous promotion by Dr. Wonderful, enough money came in to provide much better meals and amenities than 96% of homeless shelters in the greater Los Angeles area-Billy knew; he had checked. Among the many benefits of this improvement was the knowledge that, when he visited Penny for lunch, the food, though stretched, was not horrible.

Not that he cared personally-Moist had served up worse back in the day-but it was nice to not be distracted while he was trying to hold a conversation with the woman of his dreams.

"Um, well." Billy looked up from toying with an indeterminate vegetable in his soup. "I might've just gotten offered a DoD contract to be the next Defender of Metro City."

Penny dropped her spoon. "Oh my goodness, that's wonderful! Billy-congratulations." She tilted her head, looking into his face. "What's the problem? I mean, I know how you feel about the status quo..."

Billy shook his head. He and Penny had been together for a fairly long while, and she'd heard the rants he still occasionally went on about how the world was such a mess and couldn't somebody (not him, not anymore) just pull it apart and start over? But she'd also heard the other rants, the ones about how it stank, literally, to be a hero in L.A., and he could take on a real challenge, and what did he have to do, take down the Evil League of Evil from the inside, oh wait he'd already done that.

"No, no, it's not that. I would...actually...love to do this. I really would. It's just..." He took a deep breath. "I mean, I can't just move to Michigan. That's not fair to you. And the shelter's just taking off..."

Penny smiled and put her hand on his and smiled. "Billy, I appreciate the thought, but I know you want this. Caring Hands isn't going to fall apart if I leave. And, really, it'd be nice to live somewhere where no one knows about me and Captain Hammer."

Billy frowned involuntarily, as he tended to do when reminded of his ex-nemesis, but managed to turn it into a smile for Penny.

"So, do they just want you to up and move there?" she asked.

"Um, no. There's this guy there, calls himself Megamind. They want me to put him back in jail, and then I might get a permanent contract."

"Megamind?" Now Penny actually looked alarmed. "Didn't he kill the last hero they had up there?"

He had. Billy had wondered if this was going to come up, but he tried to act more nonchalant than he felt. "Yeah, but Metro Man was, you know, all jocky. Like Hammer. I've got brainpower on my side; I can take this guy."

Besides, he had the funny feeling he'd seen Megamind before, somewhere-but the details were blurry, and it probably wasn't important.

Not as important as Penny smiling at him, and the pressure of her hand with the ring on it, and her kiss at the end of the meal when she had to go back to work.


	2. New Hero in Town

Megamind actually laughed when he heard that a new hero was coming to Metrocity.

"They're bringing in a new hero? Doesn't he know what happened to the last one?"

"Sir, we're not going to kill this one, right?" Minion said, sounding a little worried, tapping the fingers of his cyborg-gorilla suit together.

"Of course not! But we will teach him a lesson," Megamind cackled, already running different scenarios through his mind. It had been so long since he'd gotten to have a real battle. Should he defeat the hero summarily, or let things play out over a few different encounters? Which evil schemes should he use? There were still a few leftover from the Metro Man days-the Robo-Sheep would be a good one. He should probably wait until he saw what kind of hero this was, though.

Of course he wasn't going to kill this hero. What fun would that be? Sure, he might've done in Metro Man, but that had been (unintended) necessary.

"Send all the brainbots over to the Evil Lair, Minion! We've got a lot of work to do."

...

The Evil Lair was supposed to be cold and dank, but Megamind couldn't help but suspect that it hadn't been quite this dank back before he was an Evil Overlord. He hadn't really used it much since the day he defeated Metro Man (the day that plagued his nightmares), relying on equipment he'd already invented and residing in City Hall. Now, as the brainbots swarmed in behind him, he realized how much he'd missed it.

Still, he wasn't going anywhere near the fake observatory on the roof.

"Sir, how are we going to get the hero to come fight?" Minion asked quietly, barely audible above the brainbots' bowging.

"What do you mean? He's a hero; he'll come fight us anyhow," Megamind pointed out.

"Yes, but I mean, before, whenever you had an evil scheme for Metro Man, we would always, you know, kidnap Miss R-"

"_Don't!_" Megamind barked sharply. He took a deep breath. The memories, the ones that only came out to play at night, of Roxanne Ritchi so perfectly calm in the middle of all his deathtraps, taunting and bantering him, the memories that always ended in the nightmare-stayed suppressed.

He would not feel a thing.

Minion was silent.

"We shall manage just fine without having to resort to any cheap tricks such as the one to which you allude," Megamind said stiffly. "If he's here to give me what I deserve, getting him to fight should be simple. Waiting outside City Hall with a giant robot should be plenty provocation. The only question is what evil schemes do we wish to unleash upon him before the glorious climactic battle?"

With that, he marched into the depths of the Lair, Minion and the last of the brainbots trailing after him.

...

Billy was supposed to be reviewing Megamind's dossier on the plane to Metro City, but it was really, really repetitive-the guy just kept breaking out of jail, kidnapping this one girl, trying to pull some evil scheme, and going back to jail; seriously, did he even have a plan?-and the jet lag was already getting to him. To his credit, he made a valiant effort, but somewhere around Megamind's 48th failed attempt to take over Metro City, Billy just couldn't keep his eyes open.

He dreamed about the day he'd come to rescue Penny from Fake Thomas Jefferson, back when the Evil League of Evil had tried to take over L.A. According to Bad Horse, she'd been distracting him from the serious business of taking over the world, and had to be eliminated.

_He arrives at the top of the U.S. Bank Tower, where she's tied to the giant antenna and Fake Thomas Jefferson is standing guard. Fake Thomas Jefferson laughs in his face. "You can never defeat me! You were barely evil enough to make it into the League!"_

_Dr. Horrible laughs right back, and shoots Fake Thomas Jefferson with the Freeze Ray, just like he did with the other League members who were waiting for him in the building-the ones who were left, anyhow. _

_In real life, it took an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to get Penny untied, but in the dream, he does it just like that, and swings her around in his arms. "We won, we won, we won!" he yells to the skies. And then she pushes up his goggles, gently, and smiles, and is just about to kiss him-_

_-and then they're not on top of the U.S. Bank Tower, they're in the community center and she's bleeding out and no no this isn't how it happened-_

Billy jerked awake. That part of the dream had been new. He shook his head, hard, and decided to get back to going over the dossier, which might be boring, but at least doesn't have any nasty surprises lurking around the corner.

Getting through Metro City International Airport turned out to be kind of a chore, given that he'd brought nearly every weapon he'd spotted lying around the lab, plus a few that he'd missed but Moist had snuck in there. At LAX, he'd been more or less on home turf, so the security guys had been a little bit more understanding. Billy finally had to pull out the unofficial hero ID the mayor had given him a few months back. Hopefully, he thought, this would soon cease to be a problem.

He'd decided it would be strategic to arrive at the Metro City mayor's house in costume-let the man know what he was getting, so to speak. As it turned out, a sizable percentage of the former MCPD had gathered there as well, albeit looking slightly terrified. Billy couldn't tell if they were really as incompetent as they seemed, or Megamind was just that scary. No, definitely the first one. There was no way anybody could be as dangerous as they were making him out to be.

The mayor eyed the armloads of weapons cases Billy hauled into the building. Most of them didn't actually have guns or rays, just regular technology he used to make up for not being able to fly or punch through things or see through walls. Still, maybe it was a little bit overkill to bring all of it...

Nah. He had to make a strong impression, or it was right back to L.A. and freezing teenagers who tried to steal car antennas.

"Dr. Wonderful," the mayor said, shaking his hand, when Billy had finally gotten everything inside from the taxi and paid the driver an exorbitant fee. "Glad you could come out and take a look at our...problem."

"Of course." Billy smiled and tried not to let it show how much he hated his new title. Seriously, who had picked that? Just because he was sort of a hero now didn't mean he couldn't still be horrible, from time to time. "Is there any particular time you want me to tackle him, or should I just start in tomorrow?"

The mayor looked him, and his piled-up cases, up and down. "Tomorrow works fine," he said. "We'll make sure and clear the streets. He might have some kind of elaborate death trap, and you should know he's made use of hostage situations before."

"Yes, the incidents with the reporter," Billy mused. "What happened to her, anyway? I might need to know."

"She died," one of the cops volunteered, and then shrugged. "I think. Around when Metro Man was, you know..." Evidently no one wanted to talk about the previous hero's fate. The room went quiet except for some CD playing in the background, a truly awful singer with an equally obnoxious guitar.

"Anyway," the mayor finally said, "you'll probably want to get some rest-we've got a room set up for you, although it might be a little cramped with all...this."

All in all, Billy thought as he started hauling cases up the stairs, it wasn't the most auspicious start to a potential new career-but it could've been worse.

...

Megamind was up early the first day the new hero was in town. The alarm clock jolted him awake before the nightmare could even start, so that was an added bonus. As the sun rose, he was out in front of City Hall, in the biggest of the giant battle mechs. (He had three to choose from; being an unopposed Evil Overlord left you with a surprising amount of inventing time on your hands.)

The new hero was punctual, you had to give him that. Unfortunately, he was also pathetic.

Seriously. At first Megamind thought he'd been stood up, because surely the smallish blond man in the white lab coat with the ridiculous number of ray guns (he counted six) was just a very confused passerby with no aspirations to anything, least of all defeating Metrocity's own incredibly handsome criminal genius and master of all villainy. But no, that was definitely a challenge he was shouting.

Couldn't they have at least sent him a worthy opponent? This moron probably didn't even have any powers. He really would have to speak with the mayor about this-after the battle. At this point, any hero was better than none at all.

Megamind decided to take the initiative, scooping up a car in one of the giant robot's hands and launching it at the hero. His foe dodged it easily, almost as if he were used to having cars thrown at his head. Megamind tried a couple more, with the same result.

The hero was firing off one of the ray guns (it looked like a stun ray of some kind), but the blasts just bounced off the robot's metal hide. Megamind wondered briefly if the fight looked like a bizarre dance from a distance, with the robot trying to stomp within smacking range of the hero, and the hero scurrying in and out, dodging the robot's feet.

Perhaps it was time for some witty banter. Megamind turned on the robot's comm system. "Your doom is at hand, hero!" he shouted (though it wasn't, exactly; he would give the guy a few more chances before booting him out of town). "None who challenge the might of Megamind can hope to prevail!"

"Oh, please," the hero rejoined. "You're a wannabe at best. The Evil League of Evil would've eaten you for breakfast."

"The what of who?" That was definitely the dumbest name Megamind had ever heard, and he'd spent most of the past several years fighting Metro Man. "Look, if you're just going to make up names, the banter's not going to work." He sent a robotic fist crashing down just as the hero was about to fire off what looked suspiciously like a small EMP charge. Dust filled the air, and for a moment, he lost track of his opponent.

Then there was a soft sort of thwooping thrum, and the robot suit froze. The controls were all still on, but Megamind could no more move them than if they had been carved from solid granite. The whole robot, in fact, was frozen-including the escape hatch.

Okay, so that was unexpected. Would the de-gun still work?

Dehydrating the escape hatch didn't really work, but the gun worked like a charm on the glass dome that covered the control chamber. Megamind scrambled out and down to the ground just in time to see the hero striding towards him over the cracked pavement.

"You're better at this than I thought," he conceded, giving his cape an evil twitch. "I don't think I got your name, hero."

The man in white was only about ten feet away now. "It's Dr. Horr-Dr. Wonderful," he said, just a tad more grimly than heroes usually did.

That was an even worse name than the Evil League of Evil. Megamind had to laugh. "So, what, you have a PhD in wonderfulness?"

Dr. Wonderful frowned, like that rang a bell, but then the freeze ray was up again, pointed at Megamind. "If you say so."

But Megamind hadn't made it to where he was without being quick on the draw. A beam of blue energy from the de-gun shot through the air, connecting with the freeze ray beam. The energies collided with a small 'boom', and then a shockwave like a thunderclap rode out from the point of connection. Both men stumbled back slightly, then looked at each other with newfound recognition.

"Wait a minute," Megamind said, at the same time as his nemesis. "Haven't we met?"


End file.
